#Shaofeng is square between both

[seyaryminamoto]

Would Ozai have had enough darkness in his soul to control the bloodlust spear. At face value I decided he's the worst kind of person to find it. But chapters like the latest give me doubts that he has the right kind of evil in him to control it. He is very much a bad man who's ordered terrible things be done, but there's still a tiny speck of goodness deep down in that man's pitiful soul. Maybe the worst possible person to carry the spear was the evil guy who actually found it and not Ozai.

Hmmmmmm... frankly, I would say Ozai isn't on Rhone's level of corruption, which really isn't a compliment for him.

Let's just say... Rhone embraced his own darkness in ways Ozai hasn't. Strange as it might sound to say this, Ozai is deeply immature, incapable of reflecting on his own mistakes in the ways Rhone could reflect on his own and simply keep going because understanding the gravity and darkness of his choices just didn't stop or faze him. As far as he was concerned, none of it mattered. Meanwhile, Ozai really doesn't understand his mistakes in that way, at least, not where we are now. And once he does understand them better and reflects on them... he will shockingly be able to regret some of those mistakes, and not simply because he's at a disadvantage by his own making.

It's complicated to determine if Ozai still has anything genuinely good inside him, but as I've always said, my take on him is that he's a dark mirror to Zuko. Where Zuko learns to make better decisions, Ozai does not. When faced by similar crossroads, Zuko might not always make the right decisions... but in contrast, Ozai constantly, persistently makes the wrong ones. So, much as Zuko has the potential to become a darker, worse person, Ozai has the potential to NOT go as dark and yet he often makes the choices to avoid being a decent human being :'D he's a lot more complex than even I anticipated, which means he also has been more infuriating than I ever thought he'd be xD but everything seems to go back to the messed up upbringing he endured at Azulon's hands. I was thinking about it just yesterday but the reeeeally messed up dynamics of that family practically have made it so the biggest villain in Gladiator is... Azulon. Who's already dead. Which means you can't really defeat him since he's already been defeated...

And yet, because Azulon's shadow still grips Ozai so strongly, no matter if he's dead (because Ozai is basically trailing on Azulon's footsteps and furthering the man's campaigns anyway), Azulon's legacy is still thriving in Ozai, no matter if Ozai hated his father enough to want him dead. The generational chaos in this family is soooo messed up... and that's why part of the story is about ensuring Zuko DOESN'T end up following Ozai's footsteps without his awareness, the same way Ozai has with Azulon.

... And I got completely sidetracked rambling there, but my point is basically that Ozai has many complications going on inside him, such as a profound lack of self-awareness and enough regrets to his name, which are constantly piling on and on, that I really don't think he could be a more dangerous wielder of the Bloodlust Spear than Rhone. Rhone, actually, is the most powerful person to wield it because his darkness basically kept the Spear in a subservient position. He never lowered his guard with the Spear, so even when the Spear was tempted to turn on him when he was bleeding heavily, Rhone still managed to keep it at bay by sheer willpower. Ozai... as much as I don't want to undersell him as a villain and whatnot, really wouldn't be able to do that.

All in all, it's difficult to judge who would be the worst person to hold the spear. Rhone is almost the best person for it, in a sense, because he's the only one whose mind was dark enough that it wouldn't be overcome by the Spear. Problem is, of course, that he was a terribly amoral person, so his ability to tame the Spear is relatively meaningless considering what he'd use it for...

That being said, I'll go out of my way to say that the worst person altogether who could have wielded the Spear is actually General Shaofeng :'D he's not on a superior level of acceptance of being a fucked up individual like Rhone is, no... but he's proudly fucked up, proudly self-serving, and he wouldn't shed a single tear if he massacred half the Fire Nation by mistake if the Spear takes control of him, of course, as long as it doesn't choose to kill him too. Murdering heaps of people wouldn't mean anything to him, even if it's his own nation. All he really wants is power, and if he could have used the Spear to obtain that power (such as by slaughtering those who held the power he wants, or controlling everyone through fear of the legendary weapon), he wouldn't have hesitated to do it. He would have been more destructive than Rhone, he would have been more amoral than Rhone, the Spear would have absolutely controlled him as it pleased... he's really about the last kind of person anyone would want to see wielding the Bloodlust Spear.